Monday, October 22, 2007

What I'm Reading (or Planning to Read) Related to Nietzsche

In addition to the essays in the Geuss book, Outside Ethics, many of which deal with Nietzsche or Nietzschean themes, here's what's on my reading list that is Nietzsche-related (some of these I've already read some of and may write about, others I haven't started):

Young's book is the one I am likely to write about in the near future.

I'm also still reading around in various essays in The Blackwell Companion to Nietzsche (2006), edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson. This isn't, I have to say, a very good collection, and it is extremely uneven, but (1) there are some worthwhile essays (of the ones I've read, Clark and Dudrick's on naturalism in Beyond Good and Evil is certainly the best, but I hold out hope for some of those I haven't yet gotten to, such as Peter Poellner's, among others), and (2) I'm discussed and criticized more than any other Nietzsche scholar, so that at least makes the volume interesting to me!

In addition to the books you mentioned, I'm beginning to work through Leiter and Sinhababu's Nietzsche and Morality, David Owen's On the Genealogy of Morality, and Bishop's (ed.)Nietzsche and Antiquity. The latter for the dissertation.

Not currently doing any Nietzsche reading, but I just finished taking in Twilight of the Idols (Ludovici trans.) on my iPod. There's a pretty good public domain recording of it here. Perhaps the voice has a tad too much condescension, even for Nietzsche!

The last book I read on Nietzsche was Leslie Thiele's "Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul" (1990). It's in a very different style than your "Nietzsche on Morality" and Reginster's A of L, but it pretty much touched on every aspect of his work that appeals to me.

Will you have other scholars guest posting or as regulars?

Also --- can you get Judge Posner to guest post as you did on Leiter Reports? I know he's a Nietzsche fan, and I'd like to watch the two of you battle over some interpretations.

I recently read Gregory Moore, Nietzsche, Biology, and Metaphor (Cambridge, 2002). It's especially good to read in conjunction with John Richardson's Nietzsche and Darwin book. Moore helpfully relates the weird and wonderful world of 19th-century biology, helping to explain how Nz's notions of health and will to power fit in.

In light of Freud's well-known optimism about the likely demise of religion in the West, I thought this passage from a previously unknown 1931 manuscript might be of interest because it seems to explain the power of Christianity in terms that would appear to conflict with his prognosis in "Future of an Illusion" and other subsequent writings in which he subjects religion to sustained attention:

"Christ is, after all, the perfect reconciliation between masculinity and femininity. Belief in his divinity includes the belief that one can realize the wildest dreams of activity by means of the utmost passivity; by submitting unreservedly to the father, one triumphs over him and becomes God oneself. This mechanism of reconciling opposing impulses of masculinity in the constitutionally bisexual human being by identifying with Christ is something so satisfying that it assures the Christian religion a long existence. People will not readily be willing to give up something that rescues them from the most difficult conflict they have to grapple with. They will continue to identify with Christ for a long time to come." (1293-1294)

A nice piece by Jared Diamond in the New Yorker that, along with the work of William Ian Miller (EYE FOR AN EYE, HUMILIATION, ANATOMY OF DISGUST), might be a useful corrective to the general lack of attention philosophers give to the speculative-anthropological claims Nietzsche makes in the GENEALOGY (particularly the Second Treatise):

"I asked Daniel why, on learning of Soll’s death, he hadn’t saved himself all the effort and expense, and just asked the police to arrest Isum. 'If I had let the police do it, I wouldn’t have felt satisfaction,' he replied. 'I wanted to obtain vengeance myself, even if it were to cost me my own life. I had to ask myself, how could I live through my anger over Soll’s death for the rest of my life? The answer was that the best way to deal with my anger was to exact the vengeance myself.'"

"The revenge of restoration does not protect us against further harm; it does not make good the harm suffered—except in one case. If our honor has suffered from our opponent, then revenge can restore it. But this has suffered damage in every instance in which suffering has been inflicted on us deliberately; for our opponent thus demonstrated that he did not fear us. By revenge we demonstrate that we do not fear him either: this constitutes the equalization, the restoration. (The intent of showing one’s utter lack of fear goes so far in some persons that the danger their revenge involves for them—loss of health or life or other damage—is for them an indispensable condition of all revenge. Therefore they choose the means of a duel although the courts offer them help in attaining satisfaction for the insult: but they do not accept an undangerous restoration of their honor as sufficient, because it cannot demonstrate their lack of fear.)"

May I ask what your thoughts were on the Clark and Dudrick article in the Blackwell Companion to Nietzsche? I thought their amendations to your conception of Nietzsche's naturalism were very interesting - and I can't find your response anywhere. I suspect your answer may be contained in forthcoming Oxford Handbook - but I'd love to know if their comments caused you to amend any of your thoughts.Thanks, L(philosophy undergrad).

About Me

Brian Leiter is Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the Center for Law, Philosophy, & Human Values at the University of Chicago. He works on a variety of topics in moral, political, and legal philosophy. His current Nietzsche-related work concerns Nietzsche's theory of agency and its intersection with recent work in empirical psychology; Nietzsche's arguments for moral skepticism; and the role of naturalism in Nietzsche's philosophy.